Sir Arnold Wesker F.R.S.L. is considered one of the key figures in 20th Century drama and is the author of nearly 50 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, an autobiography, a book on journalism, a children’s book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 18 languages, and continue to be performed worldwide. 2006 celebrated his knighthood ‘for services to drama’. 2008 celebrated his 50th year as a playwright.

Arnold Wesker was born on 24 May 1932 in Stepney in the East End of London. His father was a Russian-Jewish tailor and his mother was of Hungarian-Jewish extraction. He spent most of the Second World War in London and in 1943 he went to Upton House Central School in Hackney. He left school in 1948, worked in various jobs including kitchen porter and pastry cook, and was conscripted into the Royal Air Force in 1950, an experience he later wrote about in his play Chips with Everything (1962). He began to write plays and received a bursary from the the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1958. He was Chairman of the British Centre of the International Theatre Institute between 1978 and 1982 and President of the International Playwright’s Committee between 1979 and 1983. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of East Anglia, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, and Denison University in Ohio. The three plays which make up the Wesker Trilogy (1960) – Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots and I’m Talking about Jerusalem – were first performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry between 1958 and 1960. The trilogy, which drew on Wesker’s working class Jewish background, was first performed in its entirety at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1960. The Kitchen (1961), first performed in 1959, similarly drew on his own direct experience and was revived by Stephen Daldry at the Royal Court in 1994. In 1961 Wesker played a leading role in the Committee of 100’s demonstrations against the use of nuclear weapons and, together with Bertrand Russell and others, was sentenced to a month in prison. He also became artistic director of Centre 42, a cultural movement for popularising the arts. Chips with Everything, a portrait of life in the RAF, opened at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in 1962. Subsequent plays include Their Very Own and Golden City (1966), The Friends (1970), Caritas: A Play in Two Acts (1981), Wild Spring, as published in Wild Spring and Other Plays (1994) and Denial, first staged at the Bristol Old Vic. His book The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel (1997) is an account of the unhappy production of his play Shylock (1980), (previously named The Merchant) on Broadway in 1977, when Zero Mostel died after the first performance. Arnold Wesker has written a number of collections of short stories including Love Letters on Blue Paper: Three Stories (1974) and The King’s Daughters (1998). He published As Much as I Dare: An Autobiography, a memoir covering the early part of his life, in 1994. He has also written screenplays: Lady Othello (an original) in 1982, and an adaptation of Doris Lessing’s novel The Diary of Jane Somers. His recent work includes Barabbas, a short playfor BBC television; Groupie, originally for radio, subsequently for stage; Longitude, a new play; and Grief, libretto for a one-woman opera. In 2005, his first novel, Honey, was published – taking off where his play Roots finishes, continuing the story of Beatie Bryant. His first collection of poetry, All Things Tire of Themselves, was published in 2008. Arnold Wesker is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in the Black Mountains of Wales and was knighted in 2006. 2008 celbrated his 50 years as a playwright with omnibus editions of genres of his works 🙂

Today has been #UKYAday, a day organised by the wonderfully committed Lucy Powrie @LucytheReader over at Queen of Contemporary.UKYA day is about promoting Young Adult literature by writers who were born in or now live in the UK. Lucy also runs @ProjectUKYA, hosts #ukyachat on twitter and has many many other fantastic ideas for continuing to promote UK Young Adult literature.

My blog post comes a little late in the day because I’ve spent the day reading a book cover to cover – what a perfect way to spend Easter Saturday. The UKYA book I chose to read, thanks to @YAyeahyeah and @kimmiebells was Trouble by Non Pratt. I adored it – glowing review to follow.

The topic of my post today though is – Take your pick.

One of the issues often with the label Young Adult is that it isn’t all that helpful as…

1. The shortlist for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced. I have read two of the six books (The Goldfinch and Burial Rites) and have two more on my huge to-be-read pile (The Lowland and Americanah). Hopefully I’ll get round to the other two (A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and The Undertaking) before the year is over! It was also announced last week that Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with The Goldfinch, so I’m sure the odds on her winning the Women’s Prize have shortened considerably since then.

3. The author Sue Townsend died at the age of 68. I remember reading her books featuring Adrian Mole as well as listening to them as audiobooks, and they were probably one of my favourite series of novels when I…

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was born in Langa Township, in Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated from Fort Hare University, which Nelson Mandela and many of today’s leaders in South Africa’s government also attended, under apartheid’s laws of separate education for blacks and whites. She pursued graduate studies at Rhodes University, an apartheid-era whites-only university where blacks had to obtain approval from the minister of education to study for degrees not offered by universities designated for blacks. Pumla qualified as a clinical psychologist and earned a doctoral degree from the University of Cape Town.Pumla has been the recipient of many awards from leading institutions, including Harvard University, the University of Southern California, UCLA, and the University of Michigan. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by Holy Cross College in 2002. Pumla has taught for many years in the psychology department of the University of Transkei. She served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shortly before coming to the United States, in 1998, to take up a peace fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Research at Harvard. Between 1999 and 2001, she also taught at Brandeis, Wellesley, and Tufts, and offered workshops for college and high school teachers in summer institutes run by Facing History and Ourselves. Gobodo-Madikizela has also lectured extensively on issues of forgiveness, apology, and remorse.Gobodo-Madikizela is currently an associate professor of psychology at the University ofCape Town and an adjunct professor at the Unilever Ethics Centre of the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. She also serves as a faculty affiliate in the Coexistence Program at the Brandeis Ethics Center.Gobodo-Madikizela lives in Cape Town with her son.

On the thirtieth anniversary of its founding, the PSAI returns to Galway, the site of its first annual conference in 1984. In this anniversary year we particularly welcome papers that address the conference theme of ‘Continuity and Change’ and deal with temporal aspects of the political; including processes, institutions or mechanisms of political change as well as forces for continuity.

In addition, paper and panel proposals are welcome in all areas of politics and international relations, and not just those with an Irish dimension. This can include (but is not confined to):

1905The British high commissioner in South Africa, Sir Alfred Milner, establishes a commission to deal with the “Native question.” The commission proposes racial segregation with black “locations” set up on the fringes of cities and towns.1910The Union of South Africa is established following the Boer War, between the Boers, or Dutch settlers, and the British. Membership in the South African parliament is limited to white males, while blacks in the Cape were allowed to vote.1912The African National Congress is founded to campaign for nonracial democracy and human rights.1936Blacks are removed from the voting rolls and allowed only three appointed white representatives in parliament.1940sThe ANC is revitalized by Walter Sisulu, who forms the ANC Youth League.1948After its electoral victory, the National Party (with largely Afrikaner membership) begins the codification of apartheid and the legalization of all forms of discrimination against blacks.1949The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act makes marriage between races illegal.1950The Group Areas Act allows forced removals of blacks from white areas to Bantustans. The Bantu Education Act provides for a separate, inferior educational system for blacks. The Population Registration Act enforces total separation through the use of identity cards, limiting travel between Bantustans and white areas.1955The ANC approves the Freedom Charter as a blueprint for a South Africa, which “belongs to all who live in it — black and white.”1960The Sharpeville massacre — in which police open fire on several thousand unarmed blacks who marched on a police station to protest the pass laws — ignites countrywide protests. The government responds by declaring a state of emergency and outlawing anti-apartheid organizations, including the ANC and the Pan-African Congress. Both groups move away from peaceful protest and create an armed wing, Spear of the Nation (MK).http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 6 of 7 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved1963General Hendriek van den Bergh is appointed head of the Bureau of State Security, and arrests escalate. Nelson Mandela and other MK leaders are arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. New laws are enacted that allow police to detain people for ninety days without trial. Arrests and torture continue during the following decade.1976In Soweto, more than five hundred students are massacred during a protest of Bantu education laws that mandate the use of the Afrikaans language in black schools. More repression of black consciousness movement organizations follows, resulting in a swelling of the ranks of the outlawed military wing of the ANC and the PAC.1983President P. W. Botha establishes a new parliament that includes participation by whites, “coloreds,” and Indians but excludes blacks. The United Democratic Front is formed, comprising more than five hundred political organizations. The UDF organizes consumer boycotts of white businesses. Black targeting of those who break ranks or are seen as collaborators escalates, with “necklace killings” destabilizing the liberation movement. MK steps up its bombing campaign, and state-orchestrated violence escalates through the 1980s.1981Eugene de Kock heads Koevoet, a notorious counterinsurgency unit of the South African army based in Namibia. De Kock will later operate out of South Africa’s most notorious death farm, Vlakplass, just outside Pretoria.Late 1980sPresident F. W. de Klerk begins implementing more inclusive citizenship laws, thereby dismantling the apartheid system.1990Nelson Mandela is released from prison. The Congress for a Democratic South Africa is set up to plan for the peaceful transfer of power to the majority.1994Nelson Mandela is elected president. The ANC becomes the ruling party in parliament.1995The new government establishes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a means of breaking the cycle of violence, bringing about social cohesion, and restoring peace. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is appointed chairman.1996Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela joins the TRC as the only psychologist on the Human Rights Violations Committee, in the Cape Town headquarters of the new commission.1998Eugene de Kock appears before the TRC, and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela begins her interviews with him, which result in her journey documented in A Human Being Died That Night.

Jarlath Tivnan has just finished in Decadent Theatre’s ‘A Skull In Connemara’. Jarlath started acting in 2008 with NUI Galway’s drama society. Over the fours years he had lead roles in over twelve productions including ‘The Lonesome West’, ‘Delirium’, ‘Danti Dan’, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’ and ‘Philadelphia, Here I Come!’. He was nominated for best actor at the ISDA ceremony in 2008 for ‘Danti Dan’. Jarlath is also a member of Galway’s ‘Fregoli Theatre Company’. Credits with Fregoli include ‘Breathing Water’, ‘Blocked’, ‘The Sweet Shop’ and ‘Home’. At the Galway Arts Festival 2012 he played the role of ‘Piglet’ in Galway Community Drama’s production of ‘Frank Pig Says Hello’ directed by Andrew Flynn. This was first production with Decadent Theatre Company.

On the occasion of the biennial conference of the Irish Association for Canadian Studies , the Québec Government Office in London grants a (an) academic member of the Association, domiciled ( e) in Ireland, a prize amount € 1000 for use as part of a study tour . Applications , including a curriculum vitae and a research project must be submitted to the President of the association, Elizabeth Tilley, [ elizabeth.tilley @ nuigalway.ie ] before April 14, 2014 . The prize is intended to reward and encourage research in the field of Québec studies in the broad sense , including linguistic and literary disciplines and the social sciences (sociology , history, economics & c . ) . Contemporary themes (focus on current issues ) are encouraged . Applications will be evaluated by a committee composed of members of the executive board of the association. The prize will be awarded to the winner / winner at the Hotel Meyrick Galway , at the seventeenth Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland , from 9 to 11 May 2014. They are also looking for session chairs in some cases contact Elizabeth Tilley, [ elizabeth.tilley @ nuigalway.ie ] if you could help